Animation Director Koji Hamada Blogs About Birth By Sleep

Sat, Aug 28th, 2010, 6:09 pm (EST) by Nick

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1UP.com has recently been host to the Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Developer Blog offering up brief insights into the game's features and development. Battle Director Tai Yasue and Art Director Takeshi Fujimoto have already shared their involvement in the game's design but now Koji Hamada, the game's Art Director, has spoken about his.

"An animator's main duty is to breathe life into the characters and gimmicks in the game by giving them movement," Hamada explains. "This includes everything from crafting the motions for the main, Disney and enemy characters (like the Unversed), to objects like jumping platforms and street lamps that shake when they're hit."

Hamada goes on to explain what his goals were for Birth by Sleep and the new Unversed characters that players will be facing off against. The rest of the blog explains the 3-D tool that was used to construct each character's animations and how it actually works.

Leading up to Birth by Sleep's release next month, fans will be excited to learn anything and everything they can about the game before then. Birth by Sleep will be available in North America on the 7th of September and in Europe on the 10th.

Check out the full blog at 1UP.com.

Birth By Sleep Gets A TV Commercial

Fri, Aug 27th, 2010, 12:47 pm (EST) by Nick

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Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep will be released next month and what better way to let the public know than by giving it its own TV commercial.

The North American commercial features gameplay, cut-scenes and well, not much else, but what do you expect from a 30 second long video? What was a little interesting was the lack of Disney input. Mickey and Captain Hook are clearly seen near the beginning of the commercial but not much after that.

Maybe Square Enix are focusing on the older gamer much more than the average Disney cartoon fan? If this is true then the story will surely be worth the wait. Just in case you miss it, Birth by Sleep will be available on the 7th of September in North America and the 10th for Europe exclusively for the PSP.

Check out the video in the full story.

Voice Actor Confirmed For Terra In Birth By Sleep

Sat, Aug 21st, 2010, 5:00 pm (EST) by Nick

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When playing a game such as Kingdom Hearts, or indeed any game at all, it is important for players to connect with the characters that they both play as and interact with. Voice actors are in a position to strengthen these relationships through playing their role well and giving players that sense of familiarity whenever they come across their specific character.

Fans of Kingdom Hearts care a great deal about the voice actors that bring to life their favourite characters and so it is expected that they care enough to try and find out who is voicing who. The voice of Terra was always a mystery to fans until Jason Dohring confirmed that he would be voicing the new character in Birth by Sleep. Dohring spoke about his role in the game during a radio interview on blogtalkradio.com.

Find out what he said in our full story.

Birth By Sleep's Final Trailer Gets Finalised

Sat, Aug 21st, 2010, 1:29 pm (EST) by Nick

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The final trailer for Birth by Sleep was recently released only to have an updated version come out less than a week later.

Unfortunately there isn't much that can be said about the new 'final' trailer, it is a simple mix-up of the previous trailer but in a different order. Eagle-eyed viewers may spot that there are six seconds of extra time from the previous trailer but it is hard to spot any new parts to the already seven minute long video.

Birth by Sleep is being released exclusively on the Sony PSP and will be available in North America on the 7th of September and Europe on the 10th.

Don't forget to actually watch the trailer in our full story

Art Director Takeshi Fujimoto Blogs About Birth By Sleep

Sat, Aug 21st, 2010, 10:22 am (EST) by Nick

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Two weeks ago, a series of blogs created by Square Enix staff about Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep were to be published exclusively on 1UP.com's website. The first blog, written by Co-Director/Battle Director Tai Yasue, had explained the PSP title's new battle system, the second blog however is more focused on the art direction.

Takeshi Fujimoto, Art Director of Birth by Sleep, has written his own blog on his team's involvement in the game. Fujimoto describes how his team were able to come up with the map designs, how helpful Disney were on the project and how watching too many Disney films can be a good thing.

For Disney worlds such as Castle of Dreams (Cinderella) and Dwarf Woodlands (Snow White), we based a lot of the map designs on the film. Basically we watched the DVDs over and over and recreated the worlds in 3-D as accurately as possible.

Fukimoto also describes some of the challenges that had cropped up while working on the anticipated Kingdom Hearts title, stating "It was hard to determine how much data we could use during early development, since the game engine wasn’t running optimally yet."

Read the full blog at 1UP.com.

A Closer Look At The Birth By Sleep Special Edition

Fri, Aug 13th, 2010, 10:28 am (EST) by Nick

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European fans of Kingdom Hearts will no doubt remember that the Birth by Sleep Special Edition will be released next month alongside the Normal Edition. Those fans might also like to view the image below for a better understanding of what the Special Edition will include.

As a reminder, this edition will come with the game (obviously), two art prints of both versions of the box art and a 48-page art book. There is still no good news for North American fans, who won't be receiving a Special Edition, but they are more than welcome to enjoy the lovely picture courtesy of the European Birth by Sleep Facebook group.

Birth by Sleep will be released on the 10th of September in Europe with North America getting a slightly earlier release on the 7th.

Birth By Sleep Restricted To Ad Hoc Mode Only

Sat, Jul 31st, 2010, 2:30 pm (EST) by Nick

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Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep will be releasing in just over a month but some unfortunate news found on the Australian Playstation Website has fans a little dissapointed. Players were looking forward to the game's assumed online co-operative mode, the 'Mirage Arena', until it was revealed that the game will not be using any sort of online infrastructure.

Instead, the Mirage Arena will be restricted to the PSP's Ad Hoc Mode, that is to say that players who want to play multiplayer will have to be within 60ft of each other to play. It is not clear as to why the game couldn't use 'Infrastructure Mode' to allow online play for players wanting to play with friends around the world but this is the decision Square Enix have decided to go with.

All is not doom and gloom however, Playstation 3 owners will probably remember the Ad Hoc application on their PS3s. It allows any Ad Hoc enabled game to be played online using the PS3s very own online structure, with this in mind, players can still play online, they just need to own a PS3.

Thanks to GU Member RedRose for the news.